Shaykh Muhammad Hisham Kabbani addressed his followers recently in New Jersey, just miles from Ground Zero, and called for action and change amongst Muslim Americans.

"We have a problem in the Muslim community," Kabbani, chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, said. "What they did here is a big burden on their shoulder, and they are not going to run away, and they are going to be brought to justice."

Thank you for speaking up. Thank you for not blaming the September attack on the US or the Mossad. I hope that this is a constent message that the Shaykh delivers both in public and in private in arabic. I would not be impressed by translations popping up on MEMRI calling for Jihad against America.

Do I sound as if I do not trust the Shaykh? After what I have seen from many muslim clerics and rulers over the last ten months, no, I don't. Trust is earned. Earned by good faith and straight dealing. If the Shaykh proves his word can be trusted, I am very happy to hear from him.

This contestbelongs to Samizdata.net. Lock, stock, barrel, the whole lot. Of course,
the contest is being run by the Guardian, to which the Libertarian Samizdata viewpoint is more repulsive than Fascism, or is completely indistinguishable. (In the same way that the Guardian has problems distinguishing reality.) Merit is quite obviously not going to triumph in this particular contest.

But then, from a socialist viewpoint, such as the Guardian's, it's not supposed to, is it?

Tuesday, July 16, 2002:

Still, when I saw the headline on FOX, my first thought was "oh no, here it goes again." I'd gotten pleasantly used to not hearing about attacks in Israel. What has it been? A month?

The usual suspects will take this as their cue to loudly proclaim that the Israeli operations in the West Bank are "counterproductive" and that the peace process should resume with all haste, that the US should drop its objection to Arafat, who is, after all, the only legitimate representative of the palestinian people, blah-blah-BLAH-blah blah frustration blah blah occupation blah blah "violence" blah......